Tag Archives: Pedophilia

25/4/10 The Pope’s right-hand man insists there is no cause-and-effect link between priestly celibacy and the child abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church. “There is no direct link between celibacy and the deviant behaviour of certain priests,” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, told the Spanish newspaper Vanguardia. “On the contrary, it is […]read more…

Pope named in sex abuse lawsuit

24/4/10 The alleged victim of a notorious US priest has sued the Pope and the Vatican in an attempt to open the Catholic Church’s secret files containing internal investigations into sex abuse. ”There is a painful and long history of the Vatican and the top officials … muffling and suppressing the truth and protecting themselves […]read more…

Revising history Vatican style

Thomas P. Doyle; 21/4/10 Tom Doyle is a priest, canon lawyer, addictions therapist and long-time supporter of justice and compassion for clergy sex abuse victims. The latest Vatican attempt at damage control and image recovery is really an example of history revision. The Vatican has posted to its Web site a short explanation of the 2001 […]read more…

British Catholics say sorry for child abuse

23/4/10 The leaders of the five million Roman Catholics in England and Wales were expected to publish an unprecedented mea culpa overnight for child sex abuse. The “expression of deep sorrow” acknowledges the harm done to hundreds of children over decades by Catholic priests and lay officials. The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, was to […]read more…

300 abuse cases, one defrocking

Nick McKenzie & Rafael Epstein; 22/4/10 Victorian Police has called for sweeping changes to the way Melbourne’s Catholic Church deals with sex crime allegations, as The Age reveals that only one priest has been defrocked for abuse in the past 14 years. Nearly 300 allegations of sexual abuse have been substantiated by church investigations since […]read more…

All faith communities must stop putting children at risk

Bill Tammeus; 21/4/10 Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former award-winning Faith columnist for The Kansas City Star, writes the daily “Faith Matters” blog for The Star’s Web site and a monthly column for The Presbyterian Outlook. His latest book, co-authored with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, is They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland […]read more…

Sex scandals threaten Pope’s ‘mission’

21/4/10; The sexual abuse scandal roiling the Roman Catholic Church is threatening one of the Pope’s core missions, a Christian reawakening in Europe. Pope Benedict XVI has made reversing the decline of Catholic influence in Europe a central goal of his papacy, but as clerical abuse scandals spread across the continent, they threaten to hasten […]read more…

Pope says he leads a ‘wounded and sinner’ church as he marks fifth anniversary at the helm

20/4/10 Pope Benedict XVI has admitted to world cardinals that he has led a “wounded and sinner” Church, as he marked five tumultuous years in charge, most recently mired in pedophile priest scandals. The pontiff “evoked the sins of the Church,” describing it as “wounded and sinner” to some 50 cardinals gathered for his anniversary, […]read more…

Secret children of priests to sue

19/4/10; (2 Items) When Pat Bond told her lover, Henry Willenborg, a Franciscan priest, she was pregnant, he urged her to have an abortion. Ms Bond, who was 28, had a miscarriage and then became pregnant again. This time, the church urged her to give up the child for adoption. Ms Bond, from Missouri in […]read more…

Benedict at sea in a world of hurt

Benedict at sea in a world of hurt Paola Totaro;17/4/10; (4 Items) When Pope Benedict steps off his plane and on to Maltese soil today, the conclave of cardinals who walk behind him will be holding their collective breath. Nobody could have dreamed that five years almost to the day after Joseph Ratzinger was elected […]read more…

Cardinal error to conflate homosexuality with paedophilia

Austen Ivereigh; 16/4/10; (3 Items) The Vatican secretary of state’s attempt to blame gay priests is foolish. Prudence is a cardinal virtue, but not a virtue always shown by Rome’s cardinals. Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, recently denied a link between clerical sex abuse and celibacy, but has since claimed ”a relationship between […]read more…

Parents angered by church delay on inquiry into child abuse

Michael McKenna; 16/4/10 Parents of children raped by confessed pedophile Gerard Vincent Byrnes have expressed outrage the Catholic Church has only now launched an internal inquiry to trace more possible victims at six other schools where he taught during almost 40 years. More than a year after Byrnes’ arrest and confession to abusing young girls […]read more…

Holy anger and what you can do about it

Nicole Sotelo; 15/4/10 When Jesus saw abuse happening, he did not shrink from challenging even the most powerful institutions; he was outraged and then got strategic. He had what I call “holy anger.” When Jesus saw the commercial desecration occurring in the temple, he “overturned tables of the money changers and the seats of those […]read more…

Police warn church on new wave of victims

Michael McKenna; 15/4/10; (4 Items) Police have warned the Catholic Church to expect more cases of child sex abuse to emerge from six schools that employed a veteran teacher who yesterday pleaded guilty to abusing 13 schoolgirls. Former Christian brother Gerard Vincent Byrnes, 61, admitted to 44 sex abuse charges concerning students at a Toowoomba […]read more…

Pedophile priest needed ‘protection from unfounded claims’

David Brown, Sean O’Neill & Richard Owen; 13/4/10 Pedophile priest in Britain was told by the Roman Catholic Church to avoid contact with children to protect himself from “unfounded allegations” after reports that he was abusing schoolboys. Father David Pearce was allowed to continue living in the monastery at Ealing Abbey, West London, which ran […]read more…

Paedophilia complaints ‘unpunished’

13/4/10; Belgian bishops have failed to punish any clergy over 300 complaints of paedophilia brought to their attention in the 1990s, claims a priest who helped many victims. ”We brought forward between 1992 and 1998 more than 300 complaints from victims of abuse committed by priests, but only 15 ended up with admissions” of guilt, […]read more…